The present invention relates to compressing and storing a plurality of data elements in a page format. More specifically, the invention relates to the manner in which the page format is organized, including indexing of the data elements, so that the stored data elements can be accessed.
Data compression is the process of transforming information from a first representation to a second representation, with the second representation being smaller than the first representation (also known as the original representation). Compressed data may be decompressed from which the original, or a close approximation to it, can be recovered. Compression and decompression processes are often referred to as encoding and decoding. Data compression has important applications in the areas of data storage and data transmission. Besides space savings, other parameters of concern include encoding and decoding speeds and workspace requirements, the ability to access and decode partial files, and error generation and propagation.